Tribunal decisions

The decision

Upper Tribunal UI-2025-001278 & UI-2025-001279
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Number: HU/52128/2024 & HU/52129/2024
LH/08028/2024
LH/08027/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 10th of October 2025

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE GREER

Between

GHULAM NABI
BALQEES BEGUM
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mr Karim, Counsel
For the Respondent: Mr Tan, a Senior Presenting Officer

Heard at Manchester Civil Justice Centre on 22 September 2025

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The Appellants are nationals of Pakistan aged 79 years-old and 74-years-old. They appeal with permission a decision of the First Tier Tribunal to dismiss their Human Rights Appeals promulgated on 4th February 2025.
2. The Appellants are husband and wife. The Second Appellant came to the United Kingdom in October 2021 and the First Appellant came to the United Kingdom in June 2022. They each held visit visas. There has been no challenge to the First Tier Tribunal’s finding that the Appellant’s came to the United Kingdom under false pretences and that it was their intention to remain in the United Kingdom indefinitely. They argued that, owing to their age and ill health, they would face very significant obstacles to their integration upon return to Pakistan. Alternatively, they argued that they had developed a protected Private and Family life and it would be disproportionate to return them to Pakistan.
3. The Respondent rejected their Human Rights Claims and refused their applications, giving rise to an appeal before the First Tier Tribunal. The First Tier Tribunal dismissed their appeals, agreeing with the Respondent that their removal from the United Kingdom would not be contrary to the Human Rights Act.
Grounds of Appeal: Discussion and Findings
4. In Ground 1, the Appellants argued that they would face very significant obstacles to their integration upon return to Pakistan. Put simply, the Appellants argued that due to their age an ill health, they would lack the capacity to participate in Pakistani society, so as to have a reasonable opportunity to be accepted there, to be able to operate on a day-to-day basis in that society and to build up within a reasonable time a variety of human relationships to give substance to the individual's private or family life. The Appellants argue that the Tribunal has not taken the Appellants’ age and ill health into account when determining whether they would face very significant obstacles to integration upon return to Pakistan. To this extent, they say, the First Tier Tribunal has failed to take into account material considerations and failed to give adequate reasons.
5. In AS (Iran) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 1284; [2018] Imm AR 169, the Court of Appeal rejected the submission that whether someone could become "enough of an insider" in the Kamara sense is to be determined solely by reference to their ties or links to the country of destination. The Court said it was clear that generic factors such as good health, the ability to work, intelligence, academic abilities, ability to adapt to the local culture, and robustness of character could be of significance and form part of the broad evaluative judgment of whether or not someone would encounter very significant obstacles to integration.
6. In the present case, the Appellant relied upon those generic factors to argue that there would be very significant obstacles to their integration upon return to Pakistan. The Tribunal found largely in the Appellants’ favour as to the extent of the Second Appellant’s poor physical health, though it rejected the expert evidence in respect of their mental health.
7. At [27] of the decision, the First Tier Tribunal noted that the Second Appellant, “is not able to mobilize herself,” and continued, “I find that it is unlikely that Mr Nabi would be able to provide for her or care for her given his age and her mobility issues. Their son whom they live with now, Asif Shazad, explained that carers come four times a day to help change his mother’s incontinence pads and otherwise his wife assists Mrs Begum to sit up, take a drink and prepares their food.” At [29], the First Tier Tribunal found:
From the evidence I have been provided both documentary and oral, I am satisfied both parents are elderly and frail and Mrs Begum is unable to move without assistance.
8. Against that, at [37], the Tribunal concluded:
I find that there is no evidence of very significant obstacles to their integration to Pakistan. They have lived most of their lives there, speak the language and are culturally aligned to that country. Whilst their various children have been in the UK for an undetermined period, the appellants last visited on earlier visitor visas some time before COVID-19. Aside from that Mr Shahzad recalled they came in 2010/2011. It is more than likely then that family members would have travelled to see them in Pakistan over the years.
9. The finding that the Second Appellant is bedbound and unable to mobilise is plainly relevant to the assessment and the First Tier Tribunal was obliged to take it into account when determining whether very significant obstacles to integration were present in the case. Read as a whole, it is clear that the First Tier Tribunal has addressed the question of integration solely by reference to the Appellants’ ties or links to Pakistan. The First Tier Tribunal has not, at this stage, taken into account generic factors such as health, the ability to work, intelligence, academic abilities, and robustness of character. To this extent, the Tribunal has failed to attach weight to all of the material considerations and has fallen into material legal error.
10. If, contrary to a natural reading of [37], the Tribunal has taken these factors into account, the determination does not entitle the reader to understand in what way they have been taken into account and how, in light of the findings in respect of the state of the Appellants’ health, the Tribunal reached the conclusion that it did. To this extent, the conclusion in respect of the Appellants’ claim to face very significant obstacles upon return to Pakistan is inadequately reasoned. Ground 1 is made out.
11. It is convenient to deal with grounds 2 and 3 together as they both relate to the First Tier Tribunal’s assessment of the proportionality of the Appellants’ removal from the United Kingdom. Here, the Appellant argues that the First Tier Tribunal failed to reach clear findings on the extent of the Appellants’ private a family life in the United Kingdom and, as a consequence, failed to take into account material considerations when conducting the balancing exercise as to the proportionality of the Respondent’s decisions. In addition, the Appellants argued that the Tribunal gave weight to immaterial considerations when determining the public interest in removal.
12. At [39], the First Tier Tribunal indicates that it has adopted a balance sheet approach. Such an approach is consistent with that endorsed by the Supreme Court in Hesham Ali (Iraq) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] UKSC 60 (at [82] – [84]). After the judge has found the facts, the judge would set out each of the “pros” and “cons” in what has been described as a “balance sheet” and then set out reasoned conclusions as to whether the countervailing factors outweigh the importance attached to the public interest in the maintenance of effective Immigration Controls. Whilst the weight to be attached to matters in the appellant’s favour is ultimately a matter for the Tribunal judge, it is essential that the decision identifies those matters on the face of the decision. Only then can the reader be assured that the balancing exercise required by Article 8 has been properly undertaken and that all relevant considerations in the appellant’s favour have been weighed.
13. In the present case, the reader can have no doubt as to what matters weighed in favour of the Appellants’ removal from the United Kingdom. Those matters were set out at [39(a)a. – e.] and include the those matters at Section 117B(1)-(3). However, the tribunal fails to identify what, if any, factors were considered in the Appellants’ favour when performing that balancing exercise. Whilst [40] states the conclusion that, “the matters raised by the appellants do not outweigh the public interest because there is no evidence that they cannot return to Pakistan and be adequately cared for through private healthcare sourced and paid for by their family who can also provide them with support by visiting them in Pakistan, as it is more than likely they have been doing over the years,” the Tribunal does not express with any specificity what those matters raised by the Appellant are.
14. This omission is significant given the circumstances of the case. The Appellants are advanced in years and are cared for by their UK based children, who are British Citizens. The First Tier Tribunal reached no express finding as to whether the Appellants enjoy a family life with their adult children for the purposes of Article 8. As Mr Karim argued in his submissions, this is an important omission because it affects whether the weight to be attached to the interference caused by the Appellants’ removal would be caught by the, “little weight” provisions of the 2002 Act. The informed reader cannot be satisfied that the Tribunal has attached any weight to the interference that the Appellant’s removal might cause to either their private life, or family life, or that of their UK based family.
15. In the absence of such findings, the reader cannot have confidence that the correct legal framework was applied or that the scales have been set and balanced correctly. Ground 2 is made out and amounts to a material legal error.
16. In respect of Ground 3, Mr Karim argued that the Tribunal had materially erred in law by finding that the Appellants were not financially independent. This is because there was no challenge to the claim that the Appellants were supported by their UK based family members. Given what was said in Rhuppiah v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] UKSC 58, at [51] – [57], I find that this criticism of the First Tier Tribunal’s decision is made out. Financial independence here means financial independence from the state. There is no evidential basis on which to conclude that the Appellants are in receipt of public funds. As such, the Tribunal has misdirected itself in law and has given undue weight to the public interest in the Appellants’ removal from the United Kingdom. This is a material legal error.
17. In light of my findings in respect of Grounds 1 - 3, it is not necessary for me to say much about Ground 4, save as to say it is not made out. The Judge gave adequate lawful reasons for reaching the conclusions that she did about the expert evidence before the First Tier Tribunal. The expert did not have access to the full medical records relating to the Appellants and the examination that they performed of the Appellants was, on any view, perfunctory. There was no legal error in the Judge dealing with that expert evidence in the manner that it did.
Disposal
18. I am conscious of the Court of Appeal's decision in AEB v SSHD [2022] EWCA Civ 1512, Begum (Remaking or remittal) Bangladesh [2023] UKUT 46 (IAC) and 7.2 of the Senior President's Practice Statements. Sub-paragraph (a) deals with where the effect of the error has been to deprive a party before the Tribunal of a fair hearing or other opportunity for that party's case to be put to and considered by the FtT, whereas sub-paragraph (b) directs me to consider whether I am satisfied that the nature or extent of any judicial fact finding which is necessary in order for the decision in the appeal to be re-made is such that, having regard to the overriding objective in rule 2, it is appropriate to remit the case to the First-tier Tribunal.
19. As the First tier Tribunal determination contains no findings of fact capable of being preserved, the matter must be remitted to the First Tier Tribunal to be determined afresh.
Notice of Decision
1. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal involved the making of a material error on a point of law. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal is set aside.
2. The matter is to be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal to be determined de novo by a judge other than Judge of the First Tier Tribunal Dyer.

Signed:

J. GREER

Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge Greer

Dated 28th September 2025